


Life is Simpler in the Moonlight

by karrenia_rune



Category: Gortimer Gibbon's Life on Normal Street
Genre: Ghosts, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Jazz - Freeform, References to Hamlet, Talent Shows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-19
Updated: 2016-07-19
Packaged: 2018-07-25 11:43:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7531441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenia_rune/pseuds/karrenia_rune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Mel signs up herself and her friends to participate in the bi-annual middle school talent show Ranger and Gortimer are less than enthused but eventually agree to go along with it, even helping out back stage before the big night. However, when strange accidents start to happen they realize that they have to get to the bottom of the mystery before its too late, and not just for the talent show.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life is Simpler in the Moonlight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Deifire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deifire/gifts).



Disclaimer: Gortimer Gibbons' Life on Normal Street belongs to its producers and creators. It is not mine.  
I claim only a handful of the original characters. Note: the act that the gang performs is a snippet from Shakespeare's "Hamlet"

 

Only a week until the middle school annual talent show and Gortimer and his friends were still racking their brains to come up with an act of their own. 

Several ideas had already been discarded along the way, including one where Mel wanted Ranger to sit on her lap while performing a ventriloquist act.

They had been sitting on Gortimer's porch at the time and had just consumed a tray full of Ranger's mom's irresistible brownies when Grotimer pointed out that if they wanted to stand out among all the other acts that had idea had to be nipped in the proverbial bud.

Mel had also signed them all up to help the drama teacher set up with the costumes and the props. Sitting on a settee backstage of the school's theater Mel was putting the finishing touches on the costumes for some of the older kids who were on the ticket for stilt walking.

"Hey, Mel, how's it going?" Gortimer asked as he walked by with an arm-load of paints and glue and sundry other supplies. He liked helping other people out he just wondered if maybe Ranger would like to switch tasks and he would take over on the lighting crew.

"Oh, Gortimer, just fine. Say, have you heard about anything," she paused and sucked on her lower lip, and then left off her stitching and left an leaned towards him, "odd going on around here?"

"No, why?" Gortimer asked.

"It's just that I happened to be passing by the dressing room and I overheard Betsy and Samantha talking.

"And," he prompted.

Mel sighed. "And, they said that ever since the Mr. Frieberg began to push for reviving our school's bi-annual talent show lots of things have gone missing or gotten broken."

"Maybe it's just a happenstance?"

Mel nodded and looked around in case anyone else might be around. "Yeah, that's what I thought too, just an isolated incident or a case of someone pulling a harmless prank."

"Where's Ranger? If something strange is going down around here he should be in on it."

"He's up on the cat-walk fiddling with those pulleys, sandbag and ropes things," she answered.

It was hot back-stage and Mel paused to run her hands through the strands of her light brown hair. As she did so the electricity flickered on and off, on and off in rapid succession.

"You don't think?" both teens said at the same time.

During the intervals when they could barely see more than a hand-breadth in front of their faces their attention was grabbed by several loud thumps and shouting from another area of the auditorium. The lighting eventually went back to normal and they each breathed a sigh of relief.

 

"Better go check it out!" Gortimer said as he stood up. He'd dropped the crate of supplies but and some of the contents had spilled out onto the floor, but that was of secondary importance.

As they neared the source of where the shouts were the loudest they found their drama teacher, several of the students standing in a loose-semi-circle around the supine forms of a half dozen of their classmates.

Three was sitting up with a dazed expression on their faces, the other three were being supported by Mr. Frieberg and Mrs. Watson, the school nurse.

The first group appeared to be all right; the latter were trying to talk at the same time and their words tripped each other up and consequently made little sense.

"Please, take a deep breath and try to remain calm," Mr. Frieberg was saying to Betsy.

Betsy was hyperventilating and Mrs. Watson held a paper bag up for her. It seemed to do the trick and she relaxed and was able to look around as if realizing where she was for the first time.

"Mr. Frieberg?" Betsy said as if uncertain if it was really him.

"Yes, it's me. Can you tell us what happened?" 

"It's, ooh, it's cold in here," Betsy said hugging herself and shivering. "It's like this, Mr. Frieberg, one minute I was going into the supply closet for more resin for my violin and then the next I felt a 'presence'."

"What kind of presence, dear?" asked Mrs. Watson.

Now that she was talking Betsy seemed to recover some of her self-assurance and placed her hands on her hips stealing a telling glance at Samantha. "You know, a presence."

Samantha, who was competing with Betsy for the first chair in the school orchestra laughed, adding: "Yeah right, the presence you felt might have been Tommy Baker."

"Yeah right!" Betsy retorted. 

"Ladies," Mrs. Watson interjected, "Be that as it may; that is not to the point. Tell us what happened after that, Betsy."

 

"Well, as you all know it went dark and I could not see anything so I was fumbling around and when I realized that I couldn't do anything about it until the lights came on again, that's when something cold and clammy went through me.

"Maybe it was just your imagination, dear," Mrs. Watson said. "You know how the mind can plays tricks on one under those circumstances."

"No, no, I know the difference, Mrs. Watson," said Betsy.

Samantha and Ed, who had not yet been questioned jumped in at the point. The other three students, Lisa, Bob, and Sue nodded in agreement. 

"Mrs. Watson, "said Bob, Betsy's telling the truth. We felt it too! It was cold and clammy just like she says!"

"It's like the place is haunted!" Sue exclaimed. "Just like in Phantom of the Opera!"

"Don't be foolish, Sue"! Mr. Frieberg scolded gently. "There are no such things as ghosts. More than likely it was someone with a penchant for mischief behind it. Rest assured we will get to the bottom of this."

Betsy nodded, but there was not much confidence in the gesture.

 

Gortimer and his friends who had been standing on the periphery of this discussion exchanged significant glances and came to a similar agreement.

Mr. Frieberg added, "In the meantime I want the six of you to go with Mrs. Watson to the infirmary."

"Does this mean that we'll have to cancel the talent show?" Samantha asked anxiously.

"No, No, I don't think so. As they say, the show must go on!" exclaimed Mr. Frieberg and turned to go check out the storage closet.  
*****

***  
Mr. Frieberg was sitting at his desk when the assistant principal came in and sat  
down in the chair across from him.

"Robert, we have a situation," Mr. Joseph Sullivan said without preamble.

"We do," agreed Mr. Samuel Frieberg.

"Robert, said, Sullivan: "Look, I'm up for bringing back the time-honored tradition of this town and this school, however, this isn't the first time we've had reports of kids getting hurt even hurt in the weeks leading up to the final curtain."

"Joe, I need more time. I understand where you're coming from, really I do. But these kids are counting on me and I think we it owe to them and all the hard work they've put into to making this year's talent show a success, Frieberg replied.

"I don't want to have to do this, but if anyone else is hurt we might have to shut down the talent show."

****  
Three days later the night of the talent show finally came, and along with it, Gortimer was feeling last-minute jitters. The gang had finally settled on their own act. their own act at last.

Gortimer could not help but feel nervous. However, but thanks to they had staved off the longest summer of the year only several weeks ago the sweat that was pouring down his back and beading on his brow was not as noticeable as it might have been, The auditorium was air-conditioned helped, too.

He thought he looked absurd dressed in hose and a tunic and thigh-high boots. The tunic actually had started out as one of his Dad's dress shirts which his Mom had sewn and hemmed so it did not hang down to his knees. 

Ranger was dressed the same and Mel had a dress and a cape. The style was supposed vaguely reminiscent of those worn by the Danish nobility like in Hamlet.

Mel had found a picture in the school library and they had agreed that if they were going to a classic line of monologue from a Shakespearean play they might as well look the part as well. 

Gortimer, in the back of his mind, thought, 'It's all right for them because Mel cleaned up well and she looked really nice in a dress even she typically never cared to wear them. Ranger and Mel had done a bang-up job on the ceramic skull, but something is still off here.'

Gortimer stole a glance at Ranger who was rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet and trying to remember his lines.

Mel offered each of them an encouraging grin and a thumbs-up and her overly eager swap on Ranger's back nearly toppled him off-balance and onto the carpeted floor. "Hey, what the blueberry jam was that for?" Ranger demanded of Mel when scrambled back to his feet.

"Sorry, lost my head there for a moment," replied Mel. "You two best look sharp now, we're on in five."

"Yeah. It's all good," Ranger said as the three of them walked out onto stage.  
**

Gortimer took up a dramatic pose on the stage holding up the ceramic skull that Ranger had removed from their prop crate.  
_"“To be, or not to be: that is the question:_  
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer  
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,  
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,  
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;  
No more; and by a sleep to say we end  
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks  
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation  
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;  
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;  
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come  
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil.." 

Gortimer paused because for some reason the remainder of the lines became stuck and he couldn't get the rest of it out.

Mel removed her veil and introduced herself. "Forsooth, tis I Ophelia who doth appear and though there be troubles, nay, nigh on calamities that trouble the warp and the weft of our land; shall it be that I wilst forsake my Lord is his time of need?"

Ranger added. "Fair Ophelia, Wouldst I dispute thy claims or thy good heart and intentions... but look to yonder skull for it might well answer yea or nay to thy question it would only fain to answer true."

Just then as the gear that Ranger and the other special effects crew had rigged to make it appear as if the ceramic and fiberglass skull could speak another eerie cold wind swept through the auditorium.

Gortimer and his friends glanced askance at each other, should they keep going? 

The wind whirled the leaves of the program guides in the hands of the audience, causing folks to grasp and stir restlessly; some merely thought that this was part of the act and remained where they were.

Finally, in the middle of the stage a figure gradually resolved into solidity, "I am Ize and Life is Simpler in the Moonlight. Where's a piano?"

"Say, does anyone know how to fight a ghost?" Ranger asked.

"Maybe it doesn't want to fight?" Mel said hopefully.

"What do you want?" Gortimer asked the ghost.

"What do you have against talent shows?" Ranger added.

The ghost who declared itself to be Ize cocked his head to one side as if thinking the matter over. "I must perform, a travesty occurred here twenty-five years ago that must be rectified."

"You want a piano! exclaimed Mr. Joseph Frieberg who had by now apprehensively come out onto the stage. Turning to several other stagehands Frieberg ordered them to get a piano out here on the double.

 

Once a piano had been fetched Ize the ghost sat down on the bench and began to limber up his fingers and then began to play. The tune was mellow and sweet, somber and dark by turns often hovering just on the knife-edge of dissonance.

Mel who knew more than her other two friends about music; remarked that it reminded her of the time her family had taken a summer trip to New Orleans and visited the Summer Jazz Festival.

Ize played for a good time, the tune holding everyone in the auditorium transfixed for as long as the music resonated out of that piano.

When it was over Ize stood up and bowed deeply saying: "There is music that must be heard no matter how long it must wait for an attentive and appreciative audience."

In a whisper Ranger muttered, "You mean a captive audience."

"Hus,' said Mel as she elbowed Ranger. "He might hear you."

 

Gortimer began to clap and it soon everyone began to clap as well.

Ize sighed and bowed again, "Thank you, thank you. I feel I must apologize for my recent behavior, I truly meant no harm to anyone here, but I sometimes forget myself."

 

"Now, can you move on?" Gortimer asked.

"Yes, I can. Thank you for asking, ya'all," Ize replied and vanished as suddenly as he had appeared.

 

Conclusion

The following morning they were hanging out as usual on Gortimer's front porch.

"No such things as ghosts my Aunt Agatha's Melbourne peach pie!" Ranger exclaimed.

"Well, I for one am glad that's over," Mel remarked as she flipped through a stack of magazines.

"Me, too," Gortimer replied. "It may sound odd, but for a ghost of a jazz musician, he had soul."

"Argh, Gortimer, just don't. Ranger griped.

"Okay, okay, forget I even mentioned it," Gortimer replied.


End file.
